Tag Archives: Konstantin Altunin

This week’s OMG! moment of the week is a no-brainer. Vladimir Putin is no stranger to talking controversy but at the G20 Summit he just talked crap. Putin apparently dismissed the UK as a “small island no one pays attention to apart from the Russia oligarchs who bought up Chelsea.”

Let’s just say Putin is right, just for a moment. What does that say about Russia if its richest folk would rather live on the other side of Europe in Chelsea? My Russian friends in London are desperate to extend their visas because Moscow simply isn’t safe enough.

Take Nikita, his father is a successful businessman in Russia. His family live in Moscow but he dreads returning home for the holidays because he can’t go anywhere without a bodyguard for fear of being kidnapped and held to ransom. His parents would rather fork out for a flat in Chelsea and put thousands of miles between them, just to keep him safe.

Putin hounded the artist Konstantin Altunis who portrayed him unfavourably in the below painting (figure on the left) and drove him out of the country after seizing his work, but perhaps he should be more worried about how he portrays himself on the global stage.